Yesterday, I watched in disbelief as John McCain, longtime Republic stalwart in the Senate attempted to talk sense into Sean Hannity. It proved impossible. As Sen. McCain attempted to explain the rather unpleasant consequences of not raising the debt ceiling, Hannity, one of FOX’s most highly rated commentators, stared directly into the camera with a smirk on his face and repeated the gibberish that the House GOP have been spouting for months. In essence, the country is better off if we stop spending too much (true) and so we should not raise the debt ceiling (false) because that would mean that we can spend more (false) and the warnings that we have all heard are only scare tactics (false) and everything will be fine (false) and Obama will get the blame for anything bad that happens (false – wait, I thought you said nothing bad was going to happen?!?!).
This debt ceiling debate/crisis is stupid, and it has been for some time. It’s very true that the federal government is spending at unsustainable levels. I said this before, as has just about everyone else. But to go about it in this manner defies reason. Part of the problem is that television and talk radio are saturated with voices like Mr. Hannity, who don’t have anything riding on the debate except for ratings. It’s not as if Mr. Hannity and his FOX compatriots bear all of the blame for the growing culteral divide in this country – liberal leaning outlets like MSNBC have their own commentary shows that skew the occasional fact (or ten) in a direction other than the honest truth. But the group of freshman, tea-party ideologues playing brinksmanship with the U.S. economy are doing the nation a disservice. Speaker Boehner had to delay the vote on the “compromise” bill (it’s not) because he didn’t have the votes. He’ll try again tomorrow to pass a bill that probably won’t make it through the Senate. Ridiculous.
Just because 1,000 people call their Representative to tell him or her to do something stupid, doesn’t mean that Representative should do so. Congressmen and women are held accountable by their districts – this is true (usually). But they’re also supposed to be the leaders of those districts, not the followers. This nation is best ruled by the will of the people, not the whim of the people.